Women's singles star PV Sindhu was the lone Indian to enter the semi-finals of the BWF Badminton World Championships, with Saina Nehwal, B Sai Praneeth and the mixed doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa losing in the quarter-finals on Friday. Third seed Sindhu beat Nozomi Okuhara 21-17, 21-19 in 58 minutes. In both games, Okuhara was strong at the beginning but Sindhu, soon, got in the flow and caught up with the Japanese. In the semi-final, three-time World Championships medallist Sindhu will take on another Japanese, second seed Akane Yamaguchi, who beat Chinese fifth seed Chen Yufei 21-13, 17-21, 21-16 victory in an hour and eight minutes. In the men's singles category, India's Sai Praneeth fought hard but went down to Japan's Kento Momota in 39 minutes. Sai Praneeth lost the game 21-12, 21-12.

19:34 IST: Momota starts the proceedings and takes the first point with a cross-court shot.

19:31 IST: Both Praneeth and Momota are walking out to the court for the quarters clash.

19:26 IST: For India, in men's singles quarter-finals round, Sai Praneeth will be up against Japan's Kento Momota.

19:25 IST: Hello and welcome to the live blog of the BWF Badminton World Championships quarter-finals round.

Earlier in the day, it was the end of the road for World No. 10 Saina Nehwal as she lost to Olympic champion Carolina Marin 6-21, 11-21 in a match that lasted 31 minutes. In the opening game, Marin accumulated quick points to quickly race to the mid-game interval with a massive 11-2 lead. Saina, on the other hand, looked out of touch and failed to get better of her counter-part. The Indian also made repeated unforced errors, which helped Marin close the game at 21-6 in 12 minutes without breaking a sweat.